Lost in Suburbia: A theorem of clock/scale collusion

Tracy Beckerman More Content Now

Wednesday

Nov 21, 2018 at 10:08 AMNov 21, 2018 at 10:08 AM

My scale and my alarm clock are in cahoots.

It started when both our old scale and clock suddenly died. They’d had good, long battery-driven lives, but finally gave up the ghost and went to that great appliance resting place in the sky. They had been analog, and we thought maybe the time had come to catch up with the times and get a digital alarm clock and scale. We took this decision very seriously, did a ton of research, and then picked our new devices.

He bolted up, looked at the clock, and jumped out of bed. I sat there for a minute thinking that it was awfully dark outside for 8:45 a.m. Suspecting that something might be amiss, I grabbed my phone and looked at the time.

It was 6:15am.

“It’s okay. You’re fine,” I said, bursting in on him in the bathroom. “It’s only 6:15.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“The clock is wrong. Did you set the right time on it when we got it yesterday?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, something got kooky,” I said. “I’ll reset it.”

Since we were both already up, I decided to just start my day and sauntered over to the new scale. I stepped on, and nearly had a heart attack.

“But the scale says I did. And it’s digital. It can’t be wrong.” I was bereft.

“It’s wrong,” he said. “I’ll reset it.”The next morning the alarm didn’t go off and when I looked at the clock it said 10:20 a.m. We had set it to go off at 7 a.m. Suspecting that something wasn’t right, I again looked at my phone. It was 5:00 a.m. I went back to sleep and when I got up, I stepped on the scale. Somehow, magically, I had lost 30 pounds while I slept. Although I was momentarily overjoyed, I realized it was virtually impossible unless I’d magically had liposuction, without my knowledge, while I was asleep.

It was becoming clear to me then that both devices were working together to drive us crazy. It was like some kind of electronic conspiracy. Or maybe the clock and scale were possessed? I couldn’t imagine what evil forces had colluded to make us think we were late all the time, and had gained enough weight overnight to create a whole other person, and then lose it a day later. I wondered if maybe we needed to have a shaman come in, wave some sage, and clear out the negative energy in our devices before it spread to our digital music system and it started randomly playing John Denver songs.

Or maybe there was something even more nefarious at play.

“I think the Russians hacked our clock and our scale.” I said to my husband.

“Why would they do that?” he replied.

“World domination. One digital scale and clock at a time. “

“I think, Honey, that maybe, we just got a defective scale and clock,” he said.

“Both? At the same time?” I said. “That’s pretty suspicious. How can you be sure?”

He paused.

“I’ll ask the TV remote.”— For more Lost in Suburbia, Follow Tracy on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LostinSuburbiaFanPage and Twitter @TracyBeckerman.